By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Producer

Posted March 18, 2008  - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), made the most important speech of his political career Tuesday when he addressed his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his family and the increasing focus on race in the Democratic primary.

 “Rev. Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation that rightly offend White and Black alike,” he said.  

Again, Obama “condemned” the remarks of his former pastor that aired on the heels of Sept.  11, 2001.  At the time  Wright said, “God damn[s] America” for treating its citizens as “less than human” and blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on previous actions by our government.

“For some, nagging questions remain.  Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy?  Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church?  Yes.  Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?  Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed,” Obama said.

Wright wasn’t the first to commit this wrong. Other religious advisers have made comments considered offensive to some.  The Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham, just to name a few, but these ministers were advisers to Republican conservative candidates and were not tied to the political leader they supported. 
 
Delivering a nationally televised speech from Philadelphia, some of those in the room were other ministers anxious to hear what he had to say.   The Rev. Kevin Johnson, pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia, said after the speech, “I was quite impressed and proud of him.  I thought he demonstrated a great job of being bold and confronting the issue of race head on. Race in America is like a wound on the body, and if you do not allow the wound to heal properly, it will continue to cause a source a pain.”

A speech on race in America was most likely in the senator’s future, but the developments in the recent days gave him a national platform to do so, and he wisely broadened the topic to include the rainbow of offenders, not just Wright. 

“We can play Rev. Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words,” Obama said. “We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether White men will all flock to John McCain in the general election, regardless of his policies.

 “We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change,” he predicted.  “That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’ ”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has not endorsed any candidate, released a statement following Obama’s speech supporting the need for more conversations on race in America. “Every generation has had those like Sen. Obama who seek to solve them from within government and the corporate community, as well as those outside government and corporate circles who seek to expose the issues and so to drive society to dealing with them,” Sharpton wrote.

Sydney Naylor, a 17-year-old Africana American from Phildelphia, was impressed with the senator’s remarks.  “It was magnificent… He couldn’t have done anything better. He didn’t disown his pastor; he welcomed him. …I thought it was amazing.”

Naylor represent’s the future generation Obama spoke to in his speech. “Healthcare and education are the top priorities we as Americans need to unify [around]. I can’t go to the school in my neighborhood because of the poor quality education they provide. I think together with Obama we can fix all our problems,” Naylor said.

Obama did recognize Wright’s narrow view of the present and the future.  “The profound mistake of Rev. Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society.  It’s that he spoke as if our society was static, as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of White and Black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old – is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past,” he acknowledged.

“But what we know – what we have seen – is that America can change.  That is true genius of this nation.  What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow,” Obama said.

His speech began and ended with references to “forming a perfect union,” and he restated his campaign goals of affordable healthcare, education and jobs for Americans. 

“I would not be running for president if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.  This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected,” he said.